REPLAY: Babyface

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
R and B Money. We are.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Thank take about the chick. We are the authority on
all R and B.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I just I'm just starting off with a class. I'm
starting off with the clown. We governa started to show.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Off with the class. I don't know. We don't do
a bunch of talking and Dick Clapp. But my name
is Tank.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
I'm Jay Valentine, and.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
This is R and B Money, The R and B
Money Podcast, The authority. Hey, nobody says, ain't nobody saying
that we are now the official authority on all things RN.
I wish, oh love of god boy, we would were

(00:55):
having a building. And I'm not gonna labor long the intro.
I'm just gonna say, the greatest singer, songwriter producer.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Of all times, all times.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
All times, mister Kenneth babyface Edmunds in the building.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Thank you. I like, who are you all talking about? You?
You know who we're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
You walk in here with that kind of sweater, and
I know who forgot label. Yeah, it's gotta sound better
than the lab mogul. I mean, we are, we are
following in giant footsteps.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
You understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
And so this moment right here is like surreal in
real life. And we've we've we've we've had our moments
and in our relationship for a long time. But for
you to come here and sit with us, man, we
are I mean truly beyond honored.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well, I was honored to come and see with you guys.
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
Why would not, Yes, sir, I'm a major fan so
and have been for years, but you.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Know that, yes, sir, So it's a.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
I think it's wonderful what you guys are doing and
what you do and what you bring to the culture
and to R and B and keeping it alive. It's
it never died in the first place. So and uh so,
I'm honored to be here.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
I want to start off with a story and then
we'll we'll get into the the nuts and bolts and
the Nickson Cranny's. You called me one day and you said, Tank,
I'm doing a Christmas party pretty you know, pretty huge
deal for some cool people, and I'm going to play

(02:52):
and sing, and I'd like you to play for me
and sing as well.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
And excuse me.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
The way I translated that to my mom was Babyface
just called me. He said, I'm the greatest. He said,
I'm the most special artist, singer, songwriter, producer he's ever
seen in his life, and he can't do this without me.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's how I translated it. Don't don't know if I was.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
That and he's the.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Baby, I'm the face. That's basically what he said. And
that's you know, that's the that's the story I told.
And so we get into rehearsal over at the amazing
studio that we should have a room in and we
should have a room there, and and I and.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I don't know why.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
I'm a pocket I'm a pocket player when it comes to,
you know, being a musician playing for I'm a pocket guy.
I'm the guy that holds down the fort. That's always
been my role in a band since I was a kid.
And for some reason, I just felt the need to
dazzle you with my with my piano, antiques and my

(04:05):
dexterity and all of my information within the one key
you had me playing it, and I'm just I'm just
tickling the ivory while you're you're singing, and you're just
kind of looking like you and I'm thinking it's like, yeah,
he killing it. I'm thinking that's the look you're giving me,
and then finally you're like, god, we've done it by.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Right, right, I do the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
And then you look at me you're like, yeah, yeah,
I think I think less a few.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
More of me.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
And I said, yeah, yeah, that's the that's a that's
about right, that's.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
About that's what you heard. I remember that those were
the real words.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
But even in that moment, man, it was like, you know,
it was school was in session pretty much, and we
got there and we did that event man, and I
think I saw Dustin Hoffman.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
I was like, where are we?

Speaker 3 (05:07):
And I appreciate you for just even thinking of me
in that moment, man, and not firing me.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
That you weren't fired. That night.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
There was Warren Batty, there was a Barber Streis saying
everybody was in that audience. And I have to tell
you that because I've done that a couple of times
with them, because I'm my friend of carol Bert Seger,
That's who we did the party for. So but I
have to tell you that to this day, they still

(05:39):
talk about that night that you performed and how beautiful
your rendition of the.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Christmas song that we did. I don't remember which Christmas
song we did, but they still.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Carol still talks about whoever that guy was, he had
the most amazing voice. And I said, that's why I
brought him, because the emotion that he sings with, it's
not just not just moving the notes, but it's how
you approach it. And from from being able to say

(06:17):
sing any word or or any lyric, if the melody
and the emotions out there, then it can just write right,
you know, go right by you.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
And you did not disappoint that night.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
I still get brownie points from years ago from bringing
you to that spot.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Thank you, So I appreciate it a little more you.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
It's about you.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
I don't remember saying those words mean, that's not even
in my vocabulary. More me, less you, But that's how
you heard it. I probably I probably just said maybe
don't play as much, and you took it.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
It's like, oh more you, no, brother face. You definitely
said no.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
That's how you remember it. Those those words aren't in
my vocabulary more me.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
We were in a very complised face. I understand wrong
more me.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
So it's again when I tell this story, he's the
baby on the face.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
I'm the greatest ever.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
We we we we love to we love to start
at the beginning face like we love to say or
love to ask, when was the first time someone said
to you or that you realized that you had something special?

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Something special? The gift.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
I don't know if I ever ever thought of it
as a gift. It's just something that you do in
terms of like even just picking up a guitar and
then and then kind of singing and doing it kind
of just what comes natural, not necessarily being a piano
star a guitarist, but just kind of like learning enough
to play to accompany myself.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Singing.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
And in high school, like when I was in sixth grade,
we had a singing group. In sixth grade, nobody else
could sing, but she still had a group.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
It was like.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah still Michael Trust, Teddy Gaines and McClure, Larry McClure,
and h and we sung. We sung Smokey Robinson's Uh
saw You there and in front of our our class

(08:41):
and and I'm a Girl Watcher and those were two
songs that we we sing right there and there of
course exactly. Yeah, we tried to get We tried to
get Kim Cunningham to walk by when you do the
whistle parts. She wouldn't do that. I still remember these names.
I know the names are there. But so that was
the first time we stood in front of the I
stood in front of the crowd, the class, and they

(09:05):
thought we sucked, so I won't say that. I felt
like I had a gift at that point. And then
the second time that I remember standing in front of
an actual audience was at my brother's high school. Melvin
was he had a group at the time called the
Soul Innovations and they were there was a good band,

(09:29):
and they were going to do this homecoming thing and
right the Jackson five had just come out, so you
had I Want You Back and Who's Loving You? And
they wanted to do one of those songs, but nobody
had the voice, so we had to. So Melvin brought
myself and Kevin in the living room two you know,
go for who could sing Mike's park Michael's part, and

(09:52):
so we had to sing Who's Loving You? And Kevin
sang first, and then he walked out room and then
I came and sing, and unbeknownst to.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Me, I won.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
And I would not win with Kiven on today period
because give on his voice is crazy, super high, super
high crazy, and but I won, and so I got
to go sing at the homecoming and I got to
sing Who's Loving You?

Speaker 2 (10:19):
And this was like, I'm in sixth grade at this point.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
You see my high school girl.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Huh, same high school girls were stared at to death.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
But I I know they used to play I want
you back. When I walked up to the stage, they
would play I want you back. And I remember just
being so nervous and so scared that when I hear
when I would hear that and walking up there. And
I walked up there and sung the song, and you know,
people gave me love and and I can't believe that

(10:48):
I actually did that because I was way too shy
to ever think I could do anything like that. And
to this, for the longest time, every time I would
hear I want you back, I get nervous, aget get
nervous about it. Yeah, it's like, you know, just this thing.
They would kick you off, like oh, and then your
heart starts going. And every now and then, if it
hits me right, you could do the same thing. But

(11:09):
that first time, I was just getting on the stage.
So did I feel special? I don't know that I
felt special yet.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Then neither.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
Until a couple of years later, this kid named Emmanuel
came up to my house knocking on the door, ask
my mom, does a kid that sounded just like Michael
Jackson but only better lives here live here in this house?
Because he was trying to start a band. And so
the rumor was there was this kid that sung just
like Michael Jackson but only a little better, you know,

(11:40):
was out and so he came to see if, you know,
maybe I could join the group. At that point, my
voice had changed, you know, and I couldn't sing like
Michael anymore. And I went an audition for them, and
they laughed at me because I I didn't have the
voice anymore.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
But I could write songs.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
And I had a little song that I wrote, and
I started singing the song when I wrote, and then
the dad came downstairs and said, who's that singing? And
he goes, whoever that is, y'all need to y'all need
to get him, because he better than all y'all no way.
So then I got in the group at that.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Point out to the father's tell him sometimes you ain't
got it, he got maybe you can manage it.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
So but all throughout when you sit there and ask
the question, when you feel like you have a gift, I.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Don't know that.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
When your basic personality is being humble and not not
not being about you, you don't ever think of it
as a gift till much later to where you where
everybody recognizes what you've done and you and you look
back at it and you say, Okay, you know, I
thank God that I had this gift. But I wasn't
walking around thinking that I had something. I just was

(12:55):
doing what I love to do, and it was and
it came natural want me to do it, and I
always wanted to be better. I never felt like I
was the best at everything.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
I always felt like I had to work harder to
try to be you know, to compete with other people.
But I never felt like I was like the best
one in the room.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
So so you're going through high school? Yeah, and are you?
Are you making records at this time that you know
you can write, you know you can sing, you got
the instrumentation.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
See, that's a different time.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
It's like, you know, back then when I was going
to you weren't really making records at that point. You
weren't even doing demos. You had to get in the studio,
and that was to give the real Yeah, that was
that was different. Yeah, it was unreal.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
One could wasn't reality to get in the studio.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
No, no, you could.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
You could write songs and put them on a little
tape recorder, you know, little cassette. And I had a
lot of little ideas on cassettes. You know that I
would do write songs. But I was writing songs throughout
high school. And you know, because I kept on falling
in love and then write a song a girl.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
You know about that. I used to always fall in
love in the strip club. That was where I fell
in love.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
I wasn't falling in love though I was falling I mean, like,
so T Paine wrote your life, he wrote my life?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Are you kidding me? When does the professional call come?
The professional professional call.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Where somebody somebody you know somewhere a n R somebody
this point, you're still in Indian apples.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Yeah, I'm an Indian. I'm they're in Indye. But here's
the thing. There were so many little things that happened
that are kind of hard to believe that they happened.
Even in that time period where you would meet somebody
or like I told the story was before. But when
I was in eighth grade, I met Michael, I met
the Jackson five. But I made that happen because they

(14:59):
come to town and I saw them when I was in
sixth grade. I saw them do that going back to
Indiana Concert and saw them. I was at that concert
and blew my mind. And that's when I knew that
that's what I wanted to do, because I could see
these kids on stage doing music and it was crazy.
I had a terrible seat. I was sitting in the back.
I could only see their face if they spend Other
than that, I missed it all. I saw Afro's the

(15:21):
whole time. But it blew me away that they could
do that, and so in my head, I thought, one
day I want to meet them. And so a couple
of years later, this thing popped up where they were
coming to town again, and to myself, I got to
meet them. And so I saw it in the newspaper

(15:42):
where they were coming to the State fair Grounds and
the promoter's name was Charles Williams. So I looked in
the phone book up every Charles Williams that I could call,
and I called Charles and I put on this voice
like I was an adult. I used to have this.
I don't know if you knew this actor named Jimmy Stewart. Yeah,
I used to have a Jimmy Stewart used to impersonate

(16:07):
his voice, and so I used his voice as my
adult voice and called called Charles and told him that,
you know, my name was mister Clayton. I'm a journalist
teacher at Westland Junior High School. And uh, I heard
that you have some Jackson kids some.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Kind of.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
You did the whole thing, told they're coming to town,
and and I wanted to know if I thought it
was I'm gonna have a journalist class and I want
to have some kids, some of my kids interview your kids.
And he goes, he said, that's a great idea. So,
mister Clayton, so how do I how do I reach you?

(16:51):
And I said, well, no, I don't want you to
do it that way. I said, I have one of
my students, Kenny Edmands. I want to give you his
phone number, and I want you to call him and
and he will do the interview. I want him to
do it like he's a real reporter. And he said, okay,
that sounds great. So you know, he took my number down.
He hung up, and he called me about five minutes
at my house. I picked up the phone because if

(17:11):
my mom had got that, that would have been in trouble.
So just from Lyons, he just would have got me.
And so I picked up the phone and he goes, uh,
can you evans ple? He says, this is He says,
this is Charles Williams. I said yes. He goes, so, I,
uh talk to you.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yes, Charles, Charles, Charles, Charles doesn't bring a.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
Bell, Charles WI yeah, yes, And he goes, So, I
just talked to your teacher, mister Clayton.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
I said, mister Clayton.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Yes, he goes, yeah, I just talked to me, and
he talked about you interviewing the jacksonpie. Are you serious?
Oh my god, are you really? He said, yes, this
is good. This gonna happen. I'm gonna I'm gonna check
with the security and check with everybody see if we
can make it happen.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
I'm gonna call you back in about a week. I'll
let you know whether it can happen.

Speaker 4 (17:56):
And uh, a week later he called me and said,
you got an interview with the Jackson five, and so
in eighth grade, I went down to the Hilton Hotel
on the twelfth floor and walked in and interviewed Michael
Jackson and the brothers were all there in the room.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
I actually walked in there in eighth grade.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
So you were a scammer at thirteen.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Scammers that one could look, one could look, one could
see it.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
We don't we don't have babyface. If you don't do that,
I get it.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:34):
So I figured out how to get in there, and
it was just just to be in the in their space.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
And I couldn't even believe I did it, but I
did it, and it.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
Was it was just all part of the whole journey.
Because the thing is what was special about Indianapolis. There
was so much music around and there's so many bands.
There were like a thousand bands, and so there was
always someone to play with or somewhat some band that
you could join.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
Even at a very young age in high school, junior.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
High school, we had bands you know that doesn't exist
today whatsoever at all, in any kind of even when
they were doing you know, like the Voice Men, where
people were doing groups, we had bands.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Everybody was playing, you know, so.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
And that was so even with that, in ninth grade,
I had a band called The Elements, and we auditioned
for this concert that was coming in town that they
were letting all the local bands figure out who could
open up for this big concert that was coming in town.
And that concert was Curtis Mayfield when he had Super.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Fly out.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
And we're kids, so I'm in ninth grade. We opened
up for Curtis Mayfield. I played some originals, playing original songs,
not original songs, but playing X I think we played
for once in my life Steve Wonder And so there
were moments of things that would happen when we think, Okay,
this is it.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
We're gonna make it, you.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Know, and everybody in the music business and we've all
experienced that.

Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, so there was there were so many moments, and
so we so bad wanted to make it.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
I remember we used to.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
We'd be walking down the street and say, there'd be
like a stop side, So if everybody runs, because if
this car gets if this if you go, if you
don't hit that stop side before this car hits, you
ain't gonna never make it. So we'd run with our life,
you know, to get there, so we make it. But
what it making it mean? Making it at that point
meant that you that your record was on the radio

(20:37):
and that people knew that you you know, that you
were on it. It didn't mean buying a big counselor
or getting a car or anything else like that, because
we didn't know that you really made money at it.
We just wanted to be on the radio and recognized
for your organized and that was that was making it.
Didn't know anything else about it other than just wanting

(20:57):
to be known, have a record herd out and and beyond.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Radio on radio on radio. So it was a different
time there.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
You know, music didn't necessarily mean money, and that was
probably probably something that we should have known.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Would have helped later it always does.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
But but there's something kind of nice about the the
innocence of it all at that point that it wasn't
about anything but the music. And where that's become a
different thing today, I think different.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
I literally have had to have the conversation with my
son about they're not that rich, because you know, it's
it's this is it's part of the promotion. I'm like, Deuce,
they're showing you this so that they that you can
help them eventually get that right, Yeah, if you can
get a whole bunch of your friends to believe that

(22:12):
this guy has a watch and that's worth three hundred
and seventy five thousand dollars and it's only three of
them made in the world, but he has one. Right, Yeah,
out making Georgia this new rap kid.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Right, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (22:25):
But you know I get it, and that's part of
the promotion. And obviously those things didn't exist at that point.
And like you said, that making it was turning that
radio down and hearing your song.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
So does the Elements? Does that lead to the deal?

Speaker 2 (22:42):
No, there's so many little groups. I was in.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
First group was nty five, second was Jemini eight, Jim
and Night eight. We performed on a local TV show
called Clover Power, which David Letterman was the host.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
He was the guest host.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
That was like in eighth grade. From there, uh, Gemini
eight to Elsie Soul Unlimited. Then there was the Elements,
and then it was Tarnish Silver and then I joined
Tarnished Silver all right. That was the high school band.
We played all the all the gigs in high school.

(23:24):
So we would did colleges as well.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, I didn't want to be short to go NONI Silver, that's.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Gonna kill you.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
No, what about this? We walk in unbuffed, We walk
in walking. It's gonna be a problem.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Thank you for that.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Gotta come from somewhere.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
Yeah, yeah, no, but turn said we we did well.
We you know, from like my high school years, from
like tenth through eleventh grade, you know, tenth through my
senior year.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
We played all the gigs there.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
And the cool thing about when you're playing in those bands,
that's the whole thing is that it's it's preparing you
for later, for sure, preparing you for shows and you know,
and the things that you things that you think, you know,
like when when we were in Turning Silver, we played
our own original songs, we played stuff on the radio,

(24:25):
but it was mostly We're at a school that was
mostly white, so it was probably ten percent black. People
were mostly white. So a lot of the shows that
we as school as you go to North Central.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
High School because my brothers went to Arlington. Yeah, we
lived out there for a hot second.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Really yeah some street, yeah, North Central it was not
street at that time. And so most of the gigs
we would playing when we go to colleges. We were
playing like our original songs and playing maybe the Beg's
and you know, the blackest thing we would play with
the Earth went Fire. And I remember the first time

(25:02):
we actually played for it wasn't Arlington, but I forget
something like Arlington, uh Jack, I'm forgetting the name right now.
But we played for their homecoming all black uh school,
and we went out there and start playing our stuff because.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
We always, you know, we would always be great people.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
They'd be dancing right right right, always doing the double cross.
Different the crowd was way different, and so we got
out there started playing and they were just.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Looking at us like that.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
I remember I had one friend from pambur Er, she
was from North Central.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
She was up there looking like she was like.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Embarrassment.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
It was like and I could see that her looking like,
I'm so sorry, y'all. I asked y'all to do this
because we were just they just did not care. Because
so as we stopped playing in the then the uh
they put on the record skin Type.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
And then we go back up and and then.

Speaker 4 (26:10):
So I remember me and Darryl had a conversation It's
like we ain't black enough we just you know, we
don't know nothing. This is terrible, and and they and
we knew the songs, but we didn't play any of
those songs.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
So we were like we knew we had to start
changing our game because we thought we was gonna kill
him with the earth went Fire. We played devotion. Earth
wind Fire wasn't black enough yet, So you didn't killing
with devotion.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
It wasn't. They wasn't. Indian is different. That's crazy. You
have to be like you have to be pre funked.
Yeah different.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, I mean you know that because you've been through there.
But I'm just saying it's like it's black, it's black.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Not yet, not yet. They hadn't until reasons came for birth.
The fire didn't really kick in, you know till reasons happened.
But other than that, it was like but not like
it wasn't enough. Wasn't enough for us that night, and
uh but we failed. We learned from it.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
And then and when you said Daryl Darryl Simmons, because
that's where that's absolutely know who that is. You just
said the first name something like wait, right, y'all in
a high school band?

Speaker 4 (27:22):
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, So me and Darryl Simson and
then and Tarnie Silver. We got this opportunity to go
to this club called the End Crowd and we opened
up for this group called Manchild and Manchild was like
the funkiest group ever and they were they looked like

(27:44):
giants and they and they were also very talented where
they played Return to Forever and they and they could
play They could play jazz, they could play funk, they
could play everything.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
They could play Teddy Pendergrass. It was like, let me
what's up? No, that was oh jesu, I think so.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
It was like the fifteen and nothing.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yes, yeah, So they was they was killing and we
and so once again we went in there thinking that
we was gonna like kill it because we learned a
couple more earth wind Fire songs and they were very
kind to us. That audience was very kind to us,
and like I said, okay, we thought we won until
man Child came out. There was smoke and they came

(28:29):
out doing a check of console I'm a I'm a
woman what they call it, I'm a man Child?

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh yeah, oh, they was already doing the remixed yeah
with the name in it.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
Yeah, I'm a man Child. And I'm a motherfucker. That's
what they would.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
That's what that's what followed up.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
They came after us and just killed us, and exactly
that's what it felt like. And but it was a
learning experience, and it was like, Okay, I gotta I
gotta start learning some other stuff. I got it, you know,
because I, you know, I would play with my acoustic
guitar and played pretty songs and that's kind of like
that was my whole thing. And then from watching that,

(29:09):
I said, I need to learn how to, you know,
play some funk. I need to learn how to do
those other things. And because I loved it when I
heard it, but I just had never heard it in
that way.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
And so.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
When I finished high school, just before I graduated, I
got a call to join Manchild. Really so that funk
group that I that blew me away. I actually joined
that band right out of high school. And that was
my learning ground for so many things in terms of musically,

(29:42):
being able to learn so many different genres. So I
would preparing me for today and for the rest of
you know, the rest of my life and music, all
of those things. And then out of Manchild, Manchold Don't
last for a while. Then I ended up leaving Manchold
and I joined this group called the Crowd Pleasers, and
the Crowd Fleece was strictly a Top forty band playing

(30:03):
out of Michigan most of the time, and we played
all these places in Michigan just playing Top forty, which was.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Like the best.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
That was the best education I could get because when
you're playing these Top forty songs nightly, you're learning how
songs are supposed to feel, and you're learning watching the
crowd what they react to and when you hit the
right kind of hook, hit the verses, everything that is
helping your songwriting and songwriting completely. I'm able to learn

(30:34):
so much more from that saying how songs actually work
in a you know, where you're actually applying them in
front of people to see it. So that was like
the best learning ground and from there that was right
after that is when I ultimately joined the deal because
I had written this song slow Jam and Slow Jam

(30:55):
Midnight Star. I kind of had met Midnightster before mid
Nightster wanted to record the song slow Jam, So when
I went down to kind of help them demo the song,
that's when I ran into La Read for the second time,
and uh la, we met at that point and that's
when they decided that, you know, I should maybe help
out with the help out make some demos for the Jill.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Play another slow jam is your first placement?

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yes, wow ah man, yeah, that's not Champaigne. We can
toast play the slow jam this time.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Make it sweet.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
That's out of control, out of control.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
That's amazing that you kick all this off with a smash.
How does that work for you like at that time,
because obviously, like you said earlier, you didn't understand the
business share. You weren't fully doing it for that yet
when you.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
Write a record like that, when you write a record
like that, you don't you still don't know whether it's
a smash. And it wasn't necessarily single and it was
it was something that was that Midnight Star did and
and mind you so at this point, I'm twenty something
and I've been in the been in it for a

(32:13):
while at this point. Yeah, you know, was in another group, Manchow.
We had a regional record out and it did okay,
especially for you with the with the song and so
where we thought we were gonna make it and it
was gonna happen, but it didn't. So you have all
these points where you think it's gonna happen and then bam,
and it's a road.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's a rocky road the whole way. It's never just
straight up.

Speaker 4 (32:37):
So when when they ultimately did the song, you didn't
know what was gonna happen with it. And I was
just a writer, one of the writers on the song
because by the time I hand it in and the
other people wrote out and you know how that story goes.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
And so.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
The only thing I can remember about Slow Jam is
hearing from Solar Records that I was gonna get a
check it And they called me and told me that
I was going to like get a check for five grand.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
I said, what you actually get paid for this stuff,
you know?

Speaker 4 (33:10):
And I was like so excited, And I went out
and got me a Shila Toes card and got me
an American Express card, and you just start ordering credit card.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
I got some credit cards.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
I've never heard my first money. What did you do
with your first chick? I got ten credit cards with
the check I got. I got the credit cards.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
But the problem is I spent on the credit cards
before that check ever came, because they said that check
was coming.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
They take that check didn't come for about eight months.
It takes a minute.

Speaker 4 (33:39):
They told me it was coming in took eight months
for I got it should have got to me sooner
than but I was.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
But it sounded of Los Angeles record.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
I was already, you know, so my creadit was already
messed up at the early age, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
And but I saw that there was.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
There was that you could make, you know, some money,
and that was a great check at first, you know,
thinking that was amazing, and and all those things that
happened before you know it. It's a long journey that
gets you there, and all the all the songwriting and
all the playing in the bands and all that stuff

(34:18):
is what helps.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Make the difference.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
It makes a difference in terms of even to this day,
for when I do a show, you know, everything I
can pull, pull from all those things to you know,
figure out from in front of a crowd. That's kind
of funny. Then I know how to work it to
win a mover call able, you.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
Got to call the audible.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
I've been in front of a crowd where you know,
there was some nice looking young ladies in the front,
and I was doing what was supposed to be my
hit record at the time when I was on the
hit but.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
I thought it was gonna be hit.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
And they looked at each other and said, and it
was that tape at the time can't audible on the
death And I still had a verse two hooks in
a bridge and a hooked.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
You should have kicked over the speaker. He should have
kicked over his fier for Valley State.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
I'm coming back to myself. I gotta come back to you.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Yes, but you know, a growing pain of learning how
to figure out how to make those audibles depending on
what kind of crowd you. I'm a church kid, yeah,
so I'm coming from you know. You know what ye
all church? You know what I'm saying. I know what
to do in that space, but now I'm thrust it
into this R and B space on a Dirty South show.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, I didn't win that one. He was fu Yeah,
I didn't win that. Yeah, and you figured out how
to win it.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
You're damn right. Yeah, road two girls. I need y'all
front row center. Man, when I come.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
To please somebody, mama alone, man, come on out on TEA,
want to I want to see you.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
I got audibles. Like a motherfucker, so you right.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Slow jam and then is the next batch of records
is that Sweet November and two Occasions.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
And yeah shoot them up.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
Movies like those came a little bit later, but Sweet
November was it ended up being part of the Deal
second album. But I actually had written that. I written
that almost right out of high school and before I'd
even got there, So that song was sitting around for

(36:35):
a while before I actually did that. And so that's
that for a while before I got to the Deal,
sitting around on cassette cassette, and you know, I just
remembered song.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
I didn't.

Speaker 4 (36:45):
I never recorded it other than just you know, just
playing the piano and just kind of doing it that
way because I hadn't for some no, I think I
did ultimately record that on my Fortress because I got
really good on the fore track.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
And that's kind of like what also got.

Speaker 4 (37:01):
Me the job with the Deal, because I figured out
how to do really good backgrounds on the Ford track
by yourself, by myself, and from bouncing and everything. And
so Jeff Cooper from Midnight Start, he asked me to
come and help the Deal the do the demos, and
I actually had talked to La before I got down

(37:24):
there because there was a guy named Hollywood. He was
in the Crowd Pleasers and Hollywood was a good keyboard player,
and Hollywood was talking to La on the phone one day.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
And I had met La at the Zodiac Club.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
A couple of years ago, maybe a year or so
before that, And this was before I was in the
Crowd Pleasers. And when I met them, they had already
done the switchover where they were already getting like turning
like the time and stuff, and so they had and prints,
they had like leggings and makeup and they was like
they was all the way in and I was like, wow,

(38:03):
Mickey free Mickey.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
They were a little freer than Mickey.

Speaker 5 (38:08):
But but but it was like and this was in
the Zodiac, and I was like, dang, they bowled, you know,
but they had all the girls was there and they
was like they was with them.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
So I was like, that's pretty cool. And then I
met La then.

Speaker 4 (38:23):
And when La met me, I was probably a member's
only jacket, so you know, I had no vibe whatsoever
I was from.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
You know, I wasn't vibe it anymore. So I met
them and.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
He said hey, and but he had not known me
being in Manchat. At least he had saw me playing
with Manchold, so he knew I had some talent. But
when I saw them, I said, it's a great group.
And then when I was in Michigan much later with Hollywood,
Hollywood goes up. He's on the phone with them and

(38:54):
he says, listen to this and because LA's playing in
some music and it was some song called it Up
and it was KOs Kao playing a lick doom doom doom, doom,
doom dig him. I still remember the liquor. I was like,
oh my god. I wasn't no singing on the yet,
but the track was just like just so hard and

(39:16):
so like. It was like the Time and French mixed together.
And I was like, oh shit, I would I'd love
to be a part of that because I'm like in
a group of the crowd pleasers. And they were cool,
but they were all older guys. I mean even at
that time, they were sixty something years old, and I was,
you know, so it wasn't ever going to be anything
else but a top forty band to me, And so

(39:38):
I asked Hollywood said, ask them if they need a
guitar player. They need somebody else, you know, to play
with them, and Hollywood said he would ask. So I
wasn't sure Hollywood asked, because I never heard anything. Then
I finally asked, Hollywod said, so did you ever ask
La if I could join the band? And he said yeah.
I talked to him about that and he said, you

(39:59):
can't join the band, man. I said why. He said,
because you're not breed enough. And so being breed enough was,
you know, having the look, having the whole Prince looking
whole time. It was breed because Prince had a song
called the New Breed, So it was it was all
about being breed enough. But they didn't know I had

(40:20):
already gonna breathe. I breeded myself up while I was
in the and I was totally breed. I might have
been more breathed than them because I think I had
a colt. I had a you know, coat and everything.
The hair was dripping, and you know it was It
wasn't Jerry curl because Jerry crows go back.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
It was California curls.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
Thank you, California, California curs difference, the differences with a
Jerry curl. They dry up really quickly and your hair
goes bad. California curl you don't have to put as
much so it doesn't look creasy.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
He was much smooth. That's the whole idea about California Cirl.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
That is the difference in that was a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
That's a whole other thing.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
That's a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
The the California crew did not require as much liquids.
So that's the bottom line. So it looked natural. It
looked like you was born there. Yes, we were was
It should be good for you to know that we
was all trying to look like you. I'm breed man,

(41:34):
I'm still trying to. I put my rag on faife.
I'm gonna get these j Wade. It's a promise you
that I'm gonna get them natural.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
So did so did he ever? Did he really say
that to him? Yeah, he said it, so it really did.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
It was true.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
I wasn't I wasn't breed enough. And I understood because
the last time he saw me, I was in the
members only jacket.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
So it was fair.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
But while Hollywood was saying, but I'm breeding now and
and uh, but he didn't know that and So when
I went down to Cincinnati, I was inside the booth singing,
slow damn, putting the demo down. So lad come there
because Midnight Star was producing their their demos to try
to get them a record deal.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
And so I was in the booth singing. Then La
walked in and he goes, so, who is that in
the booth and he said, that's Kenny Emens. He said
Kenny Evans. Oh really, he sounds good. And then I
walked out and I was so breathed. He was breathed.
Walked out, Well, he's breathing now.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
And so that's when Jeff Cooper asked if I would
stay because the four tracks I would do, and he said,
can you just come down and help put demos together?
And that's where songs like just My Luck and Crazy
About You. I had already written those songs before, before
I had even got this. Those songs were already written

(43:00):
before I at least the tracks were no actually like
Crazy Boucheres, that was written and then I got down there.
Then D helped me finish writing them. And that's how
I play songs on the deal. So initially I placed
the songs I wasn't in the group. When they went
to get their deal here in La, I wasn't in

(43:24):
the group. I had gone back to Michigan. I was
back in the crowd Pleasers.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
And then I had gotten a call.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
I was there for about a month or so and
I gotten a call from La and La called to say, Hey,
just want you know that, you know, we got a
record deal.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
We end up getting a record deal.

Speaker 4 (43:43):
And I was like, good for y'all. I'm so happy
for you. As I hang out, that's amazing and and
you know, at least I got a couple of songs
placed in there, you know. And I was kind of like,
you know, happy, and then he said, also one other thing.

(44:04):
Talk to the guys and they want to know if
you want to, we'd like you to join the group.
And it's it's saved my life at that point. Wow.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
And that's when that's how I joined the deal.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Were you singing on the demos the no?

Speaker 2 (44:31):
I I was not.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
I might have did backgrounds, but I wasn't there to
be a singer. And I was asked to join to
be guitar and help write songs, but I was there
to be a musician because Carol was the lead singer
not a singer.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (44:52):
The lead singer was was Dean Carlos de Carlos and
that's how it was supposed to be. And I didn't
sing to the second album, and that almost didn't happen
because we ultimately we supposed to Our second album was
supposed to be produced by Reggie Callaway, but some things

(45:13):
went wrong with their management, you know, so our management
and which was Pablo Davis at the time, he was
managing Midnight Star and they had some problems and we
got caught up in the middle of it, and so
Reggie uh decided that he was not going to produce
our second album, and so we were like, what are

(45:33):
we gonna do? Then did Griffy called and said you
and RelA should produce.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
It, you know, So.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
We were like, I don't know, but we're kind of
scared because we had done hadn't done it before, and
then this time we were in like real studios, you know,
going there to do it. But I always written these
songs and that's when I had Sweet November that I
demoed a while and so I had actually done Sweet November.
But since Sweet November in for the Whispers, I was

(46:03):
hoping that the whispers would do that.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Song and did.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
Griffy heard the demo and he goes, why an't the
deal doing this song? Why don't y'all do the song?
And uh, it goes because we don't have anybody that
can sing it. And he goes, well, who's singing this?
He said, well, Kenny singing it. He said, well why
why how come he's not singing? He said, because he's

(46:27):
not one of the singers in the band. I said, well,
that doesn't make sense, so why ain't he singing it?
Because that's that's not it. I have to talk to
the guys and see whether that's okay. So he said, well,
you need to talk to the guys. So we were
in Columbus, Ohio, and he had a meeting with the
guys about it whether I should sing, and they voted
me not to sing. And mind you, I didn't have

(46:50):
a problem with it because I wasn't.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Trying to sing. I didn't that was not my thing.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
I was.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Playing guitar and writing songs. That was That was fine me.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
But Dick took a position, well, you know, if he
don't sing, then y'all don't have a record deal. So
so Dick forced it and forced it so that I
led to me ended up having a chance to sing
on the album.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Some people see the future. Is that crazy?

Speaker 4 (47:18):
And he also pushed the back for me to be
an artist in the first place. He's the one that
suggested that I do a solo album.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
It wasn't me.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
I wasn't This was not something that I was ever
trying to go out to be, you know, as a
solo artist. It just kind of all happened with the journey.
It wasn't something that I was like, one day, I
want to be that guy.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
You know.

Speaker 4 (47:41):
Everything was always for me, always about the song. If
I could play the song, if I had to sing it, whatever,
then that's fine. But I just wanted the songs to
come out. So did Robert Townsend write the duck character
after you? Then?

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Was it just about the music?

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Was crump crumpled up paper mess music?

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah? No, quite quiet? So it was.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
That was always my thing, and I might maybe it
was a security blanket so I wouldn't have to be
up in.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Front of everybody and stuff, you know, it wouldn't be
no pressure.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
It was. It was easier.

Speaker 4 (48:20):
And so how I justified doing the album myself? I said, well,
this is just I'm a songwriter first anyway. If it
don't work, so what I'm doing everything else? You know,
so I could always feel like I didn't fail, you know.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
So, so is that.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
The introduction to you as a solo artist or within
that same timeframe you in La figuring out how to
be partners into what becomes one of the greatest labels ever.

Speaker 4 (48:52):
The beginning of that was it was a little bit
of that, but the whole label idea. And I can't
say whether La always had that dream of owning a label,
of being a Berry Gordy. I don't know that for sure,
but I know that what gave him the confidence.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Was that.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
When we were doing this early stuff and placing these
songs on, we start with everybody, start with the Whispers,
and then we went to Karen White, and then we
had he had Pebbles, and we had the Boys.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
So you guys aren't the face yet.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
No, So that all these things that that's what gave us,
gave us the confidence, and I knows that's what put
the idea in. La said, if we can do all
this here, why can't we do this ourselves? You know,
because we had had such success with Bobby Brown, and
with Johnny Gill and with Pebbles and with all these
artists that beforehand that were having success, the Mac Band,

(50:00):
everything kind of happened before, but no true ownership in it,
no ownership just just you know, as a as a
producer or a songwriter, you know. So it was it
was that and I think for La, not necessarily being
the songwriter, he was like, let me figure this out,
you know, we should have more ownership. And so La

(50:22):
was definitely an entrepreneur in that way, trying to figure
out how do we make this so this is this
is ours? You know, and uh, that hints came the
move to Atlanta, you know, to try to search for that,
try to make that Atlanta. We had looked at a

(50:42):
couple of places. We looked at uh, we looked at
New York, thought about New York, we thought about Houston.
We were in LA at the time. And the whole
idea was that we didn't want to be little fishing
a big you know, in the sea. We wanted to
be a big fish in a little pond.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
And that's what that's what Atlanta represented. And also.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
When we looked at what the affordability we can get
nice homes for far less and uh to you know,
to start down there and try to figure it out
down there, and we just we just kind of went
for it.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
So just to touch on that backtrack just a little bit,
did you realize that you guys were the go to
guys for big records, life changing records before?

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Just like as it was going on, as it's happening,
like like what what record anyone?

Speaker 4 (51:44):
So here the landscape was this Jimmy jam and Terry
Lewis were in control, you know, cooking, you know. So
we when we first started m producing, we were trying
to be Jimmy and Terry. We imagined we were Jimmy
and Terry. I remember the first time we got on
a flight to come out to LA for a producing thing.

(52:08):
It was for Carrie Lucas, which was Dick Griffy's wife.
It didn't matter that it was her, is the fact
that we was on a plane going to go produce.
So we Jimmy and Terry now so yeah, yeah, so
flying coach didn't matter. It was like, you know, we
were rolling, we jet set us and it was the

(52:28):
feeling of producing and doing something other than just yourself
with doing someone else, so our whole, that whole movement
at that point, it was something that we didn't know
that we could really do.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
We were just kind of in it. Everything was was.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
There's a learning curve to everything that you do, and
you get you get, you get better as it goes. Initially,
when we came out to La which was in eighty five,
you know, think about eighty five. Wasn't until eighty seven
eighty eight then anything started happening. So it was a
couple of years here trying to play songs, trying to
get stuff done, and nothing was happening. I remember sitting

(53:12):
at Warner Brothers same for an hour waiting for Benny
Medina so that he would.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Just listen to one of the you know, some of
my tracks, and then the guy.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
Coming out, he's not gonna be able to see you today,
after you waited, After I waited an hour, then I
left it and I came back another day. I think
I did that three times, and finally he came to listen,
and he listened and he said, no, I don't hear anything,
and so walked away. So there were so many more
times of placing music that you you know that you
that people weren't weren't taken, and some of those things

(53:44):
were things that ultimately got placed later. They might not
have been all the way ready yet could have been
tracks that were almost there, songs that were almost there
but not all the way there. You tweak them when
you get in the studio, and that's all stuff that
you learned in the process. But that's why I never
had an ego about somebody that if they turned the

(54:06):
song down, you know, then.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
Then you be mad at them, like, all right, you
ain't gonna get none my songs.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
It wasn't that because I always felt like, well, probably
they probably could have been better. We probably could have,
you know, for some reason they it didn't hit you
because we didn't do something right about it.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
So and you feel that when you're sitting.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
Inside the room when you're listening to people, When you
watch people listen to something, you hear it a lot
differently than when you're listening to it by yourself. So
and that's you gotta watch their body language. You gotta
watch everything. So that's how you produce. Many times as
you play it for other people and see how they
react and if they're not giving you the right reaction, okay,
that needs Even if they're saying, yeah, I like that, Nah,

(54:49):
your body wasn't saying.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
You like so, Nah, I gotta way because you can't
control yourself when it's when it's that record and you
hear it, yeah, you can't control yourself. So you're still
going through this after writing ultimately and performing a smash
like two occasions, you're still happen to go through the
same process.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
Even with two occasions, even even once you had it out,
you still understand that it doesn't matter how big you are,
songs still have to make people, have to move people
because they can think that you're just giving.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Them a crap song.

Speaker 4 (55:22):
And that's the last thing I would ever want to
do is give somebody something that they're not happy with.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
I don't want to do it. Then I'd rather not
I'd rather not work.

Speaker 4 (55:32):
That's in that case, when you're giving away, giving somebody
something that they don't like, it's then that's not a
fun process. And sometimes you might give someone something that
they might not like, but well you should like this one.
You know, this one, this one is actually good and
especially every other people that are saying it, And there's

(55:53):
been a couple of times that were things like that,
not a lot, but a couple of times.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Of course, Can I skip the Tender Lover? That is
it my moving too fast? If I skipped the Tender
the Lover album, can I.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Think all time? For sure? Go straight to it? Please.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
I'm a church kid church and you know, I'm in
high school and and the women folk are taking a
liking to me because I can sing. Yes, I'm not
sure if my outfits were really lining up. I wasn't breed.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
I wasn't I probably worked out for you.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
And as a church kid, girls would say sing something,
and I would sing church songs because that's all I knew.
Tender Lover album drops, yeah, and now its church kid
has songs to sing.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
So what do you sing?

Speaker 3 (56:58):
I'm singing Sunshine, I'm singing where would You Go? I'm
singing all of it. And at this time now, my
mom has brought me this synthesizer, this PVDPM four, and
so I'm trying to emulate all of the tracks and
the feeling. I only have eight tracks, eight music tracks.

(57:21):
I'm trying to emulate the feeling of what I hear
of the Tender Lover album. That's my start in trying
to figure out how to produce and write good songs.
So that was like my formula. What do you feel about?
What did you feel about when the Tender Lover album dropped?

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Where were you the Tender Lover album was? I did
an album before that, I think it was just called Lovers,
and it was.

Speaker 4 (58:00):
All over the place, trying to figure out who I
could be as an artist because I didn't because I
didn't believe I was an artist. So I did the
song called I Love You Babe, and then there was
a song called if We Try, and there was a
bunch of things that even a song called take Your
Time they probably should have been for like a new addition,
a very young new edition. It was everywhere and hadn't

(58:24):
figured out who Babyface is, who baby Face should be.
And then on the ten yure level album Somewhere I
started to get the sense of okay.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
It was.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
It was a thing of after two occasions, it was
starting to figure out, Okay.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
So this is who they think Babyface is.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
And so kind of cool's wive and romantic and and
so these are the kind of things that I can
do and and probably make a become an artist in
that way. But initially some of those songs like Tender Lover.
Initially when I wrote it, Dick Griffy tried to give

(59:15):
it to Lonal Richie mm hmm, and Lin turn Linel
turns it down. But I wrote it for Lin of Richie,
and I got a lot of turndowns like that. So
that's a very fun fact. And so end up doing

(59:37):
it anyway. And then it's no crime. I was figuring
out how could I do How could I do up temple?

Speaker 2 (59:44):
You know?

Speaker 4 (59:47):
And so that was like I was trying to figure
out that thing because I couldn't do I couldn't do
any funk up temples, not with my voice.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
I had to figure out something.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
And and Crime was the one that you know that
it was different, you know, on a different program that
drum track, on the drum track.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
That it would have been LA. I would do.

Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
I would write every thing first, I'd have the drum
tracks down and stuff like that. Then LA would come
down and come and then add up the rest of
the percussion stuff and make that happen. And l Simmons
was writing with you, Daryl Simmons, what he was writing
not on everything, but some things that I would pull
him in most In most cases, I was like I

(01:00:33):
was the songwriter. I'd started off, and then I would
pull somebody in.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
I don't know if it's a question that I needed help,
but just it's just you know, you want to write
this with me. Yeah, That's kind of how I get
on all the songs the tank. It's just like you
can finish them. Tell you what's here, buddy, right, thank
you for that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
So but so for the most part, I would just
kind of the songs will kind of be there, and
then I kind of finish it out. And usually if
it was co writing, it would be Daryl that would
come and help with whether it's a melody or a
lyrical idea, and that would be Daryl. And La was
strictly really about the production music, production and with the

(01:01:21):
drums and and I'll give credit in terms of for
the whole the production side, because by the time him
and John Gas finished mixing it, they take it to
another level. So John Gass was a bad bad boy,
and so that was as much as the sound, no question.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
And so.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
But I think that ultimately, when when I think of
Tender Lover and I think about that that whole album,
I mean certain songs that happened, you know, from whipp
a Peel to to Sunshine to whereere you go to
give it a chance, The.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Album is perfection to me. They don't mind me think
my opinion that album is absolute profess A.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
Couple of things I have questioned, don't I'd have to,
I mean, we'd have to go through. But but I
mean my kind of girl. Yeah, they were good. There
are things that felt good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
I was at it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
I was at a space where I was it was
I was trying to just make this whole feeling of
love on a whole the whole album just feel like love,
you know, from a happy experience to sad to whatever,
and and those songs were it wasn't from personal experience

(01:02:45):
or anything. It was just me just kind of getting
into that whole love zone, you know. And from Whipped
Peel Whipping Pill being really just the idea coming across.
PEPs mentioned whipped Piel one day. I said, oh, that's
a good title, and I went and wrote it. And
because she said it, I gave her a percentage.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
Minded about that. I gotta start, I gotta start just
throwing words out of it at you more. Here's the
question right, just real quick, Yes, whippa pill comes out.
I'm not sure how sexy you were before then, but
when whipped pill comes out, you're extremely sexy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Okay, how do you handle that? Here's the thing? I
missed that whole section? What do you mean? Do you see? See?

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
I was.

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
I was around people that were blowing up, like crazy
Bobby Brown. This is all the same time period. So
I'm watching Bobby. Who where Bobby? We do this record
of Bobby and I'm watching Bobby who was you know what?

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
What?

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
May be interested in Bobby in the first place because
he was crazy? And I heard Bobby on the We
had met with Little Silas and you should do yes,
no question, and we said, he said you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Can do uh, you can do the Bobby Brown and uh.

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
And then Cheryl Dickerson, she said, you should go meet
Pebbles and you should meet and looking through the boys
and but check out Bobby too. And we were unsure
about Bobby because he had that song called girlfriend.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Yeah you right now?

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
He started with a fun.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
And so wasn't. I didn't love that song.

Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
But I remember writing in the car and listening to
the radio, driving the car, listen to the radio and
then Bobby goes, he's on there live and he's getting ready,
he's doing girlfriend, and he goes for the note that
he wouldn't go and he didn't get it, and then
he goes, I didn't want to say the song anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
On the radio. On the radio, I said, whoa, I
love it. I didn't want to say that's all in
the first place. And so it was amazing and I thought, yeah,
we need to work with him because his energy.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
I felt that I felt that energy and so and
so from these songs, from Don't Be Cruel to Every
Little Step to Rock with You and and and Ronnie Uh,
those songs, you know, they found a home with him,
and we watched him go from here. Oh unbelievable. It

(01:05:31):
was like his performing hit him on stage. Nobody could
touch him. Nobody to this day, I don't know that
anybody still had that energy. There may be better dancers
than maybe all those things, but Bobby Brown in his.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Prime, when he's he was untouchable.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
And so.

Speaker 4 (01:05:53):
So to be around that, and also to be around
other stars that were clearly bigger, I felt like I
was okay, you know, I didn't feel like I didn't
ever have that moment where I felt like that. There
were moments where it started. I do remember doing Whipper Pill.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
We did.

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):
I did a couple of dates with with Pebs because
I did a duet with her, and then I do
whipp a Pill right after.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
And I have this actually on video at the time
doing some butt vests.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
And so sometime in eighty nine doing whip a Peel
with this crowd, and I look at that, like, Damn,
I messed up. I should have kept going on something
because it was it was huge, It was like and
and I had an experience that before, except you know,
the only time I'd seen that like was when when

(01:06:46):
we were out with the barge and the barge.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Was killing us nightly. You know, with Luther, we just
died every night. You know, it was death death.

Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
It was I mean, we only song we at that
time was body talking and that was good, but you know,
we do body talk, and then as soon as we finish,
then you know, next step is the bars place be rumbling,
and then we just had to put our heads down
and walk back, you know. And and we had never
experienced that. And the first time we experienced that was

(01:07:21):
when I know, we're running out of time. But I'll
just have to tell that the creation. This is what
I believe with the creation of Babyface. Where it happened.
We were doing we were on tour. Uh this time,
I forget who we were with. But at this point

(01:07:43):
we had two occasions out and we were doing body
Talk and we were we were doing the tour and
everything was going okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
And then.

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
We played Indianapolis and my Wisdom to start acting up
and I went to they were like, really hurting, and
so I went to the Dennis and then it says, oh,
they look like impacted, so we're gonna have to take
them out. So they took out two and they said
we might as well take them off, take them off.

(01:08:12):
So I ended up getting four wisdom ta taken out
and I was like, So the next night we had
a show, showed two nights and they asked me to
perform myself. There's no way I can perform, So I
didn't perform, and my brother Melvin took my place that night.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
And they did a show.

Speaker 4 (01:08:31):
And then so the next show that we had that
I could do was in New Orleans and at the
what's the big building, the super Dome. Everybody's there and so,
and it's a big show and I'm still messed up.
I can't even when I walk it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Hurts, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:08:48):
And so but we decided, you know, we can't go
to the super Dome and you can't not you need
to be up there to do two occasions. So everybody,
they did the whole show, and then when they got
to the end, before they did two occasions, they said, look, guys,
you know my brother baby Face, he's been sick and

(01:09:09):
he's not feeling well at all, but he didn't want
to disappoint you guys, so he's gonna come out here
and try his best to perform for you anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
And they give me, give me a little bit of love,
and I start.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
I put on this white suit and I walk across
the stage and I'm actually in pain at this point,
walking across the stash.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
It was hurting bad. I'm like barely over my mouth.
So I go and I sit at the piano and
I go boom doom, doom, doom.

Speaker 4 (01:09:41):
The place goes crazy. I'm feeling like Elder Barge for
the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
It's like, I'm like, what the and so and then
because every time I close mys, I think they go.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
And the bed.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Everybody in the bed is that point, like.

Speaker 4 (01:10:09):
What and we do the song, the place loses it
and so the rest of the tour I was sick.
That was the I wasn't but I was sick the
rest of the tour and then everybody's like, no, he
needs to do the whole show. It was a moment,

(01:10:30):
and it kept on being a moment, and but it was.
It was what Finally it's it's shed a light put
a light on baby Face in a different way that
made it look like, Okay, there's a career here. People
actually people actually like you, you know, and they like

(01:10:50):
what you do and they like what you bring to
the table.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
So it became.

Speaker 4 (01:10:57):
It became a moment that helped me figure out how
to do the lover help me figure out how to
craft that for the artist Babyface, that the person that
didn't really want to be an artist, but little by
little was figuring out how to be because of the
kind of songs that I could do and songs that

(01:11:18):
came natural for me to do. The biggest thing is
being an artist, you got you want to do something
that feels organic, and when you're doing something that's not,
they figure it out and it's not going to last long.
So if you can do something that's really close to
you and that comes from you then and they love it,
then you have a chance of having a career and

(01:11:40):
people will follow you. But the moment they mo would
you feel fake, then that's the moment they'll they'll probably
dismiss you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Well, thank you for being an artist, man, Thank you
for being an artist.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Thank that Dennis for pulling out your wisdom to you
would have your star is born, a star born moment
is born like this is because if that doesn't happen,
like you said, you may never walk into that and.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Have those dudesments. Yeah, that you never know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
I just love the fact that you also spoke about
the journey and about not being an overnight success because
a lot of the new artists don't understand what.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
It takes to where you are.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Yeah, songwriters, producers, artists like you've lived at all, executives.
I'm sure you know what I mean. You have, you
have your bumps in the roads and all of those things.

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
It's it does happen fast for some and and and
it is sometimes that's a blessing, but most of the
time not because they don't. They don't realize that this
isn't forever. You know, it can come and it can go.

(01:12:54):
And my blessing has been is that I didn't have
to depend on depending on just myself as an artist.
But my artist is through writing music for other people
where they could have my artists live, my art lived
through them. So when people are singing, when I hear,

(01:13:15):
can we talk and thank you for that? By the way,
for che.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
That was that was amazing and and.

Speaker 4 (01:13:26):
It you know, it shined the light on songs that
can You know that I had no idea that it
had touched people that way, you know, and that was
that was the best gift you could ever give me,
was showing showing me that people loved something that I
did like that that much.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
I had no idea.

Speaker 4 (01:13:48):
And so when you when you're sitting and watching you know,
schools and everybody sing that sing, that lyric and and
that melody. You know, when I wrote that, I didn't
think of it as being that incredible. I thought it
was good, this is this is nice, this feels good.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
But not I don't think you know, when you write
one of those, I don't either. Yeah, I agree, I
haven't written those but I've written.

Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
But that, for sure, and a bunch of others which
we could really and literally talk about for the next
five days, have just lasted and will last forever, stand
at real test of time. Real music, real feeling, real lyrics,
real vocals, real musicianship, like the chords, like y'all, y'all,

(01:14:44):
wouldn't you weren't staying safe? Some real stuff happening that
we would use in church too, we would still.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
I didn't know that. I mean, I went to church,
but I wasn't a church boy to say, and so
you're probab like.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
The first guy that sits on this side of the
room with me, because everybody else can bring out here
for church with tank, And I'd be like, yeah, so
what's youall?

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
No, No, I'm right on your side. Appreciate you, my brother.

Speaker 4 (01:15:13):
I watch it a little bit, and I watched it,
listen to the choir, and then well then I go
to the car and listen to the you know, listen
to the radio.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
Well, but go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):
But I think just in general, I always played the
chords I could figure out, and like, I'm not the
kind of keyboard player where I can sit down and
just start playing I have to remind myself and go
through it again.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
And because.

Speaker 4 (01:15:45):
I'm it's pretty simple, I can usually figure it out
once I start playing.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Then the then the muscle memory comes back.

Speaker 4 (01:15:51):
But it's not like I'm not really a keyboard player,
more of a guitar player than a keyboard player. So
everything that I that I figured out it was it
was just kind of like, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Not a keyboard player. No, I'm not. I just playing
all of that stuff you produce.

Speaker 4 (01:16:05):
No, it was no because I because if I was
a real keyboard player, I could sit down there and
play it for you right now. I'd have to sit
there and figure it out again and go again. Because
I wrote. I was I was a writer, so I
was writing for for that moment to do it. And
and even even at the time, I could learn it
right there and then I'd forget it exactly of what

(01:16:25):
I would do. But at the same time, what's interesting
is that there are certain things like it with Ronnie,
the way that is played real keyboard players could not.
I didn't have the feel that that that was for
this non keyboard player.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
Because you would either do too much or not enough. Yeah,
exactly mean.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
You Okay, if you haven't learned anything, because yeah, I'm
still learning that because your your and and we're gonna
get these other things real fast.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
Your keyboard playing was about voicings. It wasn't about being
the best keyboard player in terms of putting ten fingers
on the keyboard. It was about the voicings that you
would choose. Like your voicings were a highlight for me
before the music even started. Dude, Like what yah, that's

(01:17:32):
that's monstrous for you to say. You're I'm already in
and we're gonna play it in church right before offering
your Your history is vast, bro, your success is I mean,
it's it's endless. With all of that, we have a

(01:17:53):
couple of questions and we're not gonna take up too
much of your time, mister face, mister baby face, but
we have questions for you. Yes, first question being top
five R and B artists male or female. Anytime my
top five or top five It's very hard because it's

(01:18:28):
at different periods when I was growing up. Here's the thing.

Speaker 4 (01:18:40):
When you're when you're a songwriter, you have people you
choose people based off because they're songwriters, and some people
just from the voices. If we're talking about voices alone.
It's so hard because I know, because I know so
much about music everywhere, So like what things that blew me,
people that blew me away? James Brown blew me away

(01:19:04):
because because he could actually sing too, and and and
then of course Stevie wonder that goes without saying. Donnie
Hathaway of Retha Franklin clearly the best. Aretha Franklin, clearly

(01:19:28):
the best of all time. I was able to be
in a room with her and work with her and
and see her genius and and hear her genius, and
to be there and even when she was, you know,
before she left us, you know I was. I had
performed with her. I actually did a concert with her

(01:19:49):
in Oakland. I opened up for Aretha Franklin, and I
was like, whoa, I never saw that coming. And and
I opened up for her, and she knew me. She like,
you know, face, come on back here and want to
talk to you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
And I'm like, Rita frank has caught me in her
dress and room to talk to her, and what.

Speaker 4 (01:20:07):
Do you want to talk to me? She said, I
saw you up on that face. I saw you doing
whippa piel. You had you had that crowd going all right,
all right, and I'm like, she just said all right,
all right to me in my head, you know, and
then she's and and then she talks to me to face,
coming on, I gonna talk to you about something, and said, so,
what's up? She goes, so, I'm dating this guy, and

(01:20:33):
I want to I'm gonna tell you the story about
him because I want to know if you think he's
serious or not.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
So she was. She was giving me this whole story,
what he does and everything. Asked me, you know, so,
what do you think is he? Is he for real?

Speaker 4 (01:20:44):
And I said, I don't think he's for real. I'm
gonna let you know. I'm gonna let you know. And
I talked to her another time. You know, he was right,
he wasn't serious. But she was already whatever eighty or
you know, she was.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
She was still living and at the point she had
cancer at that point, but she was still living her
life and still singing and still.

Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
Just not giving up. She if anybody can inspire you,
you know, in terms of people that don't give up
and keep going, Aretha Franklin. There's no better story than
Aretha Franklin. So when I say, Rutha Franklin in the
top five. I put her at number one because of
how she lived her life and how she and she

(01:21:33):
lived to sing, and that was it that it was
all about. She was a queen because she was queen worthy,
you know, and and and everything that she did. So
there was a point, if I'm being asked, there was
a point where I had Whitney above her because when

(01:21:53):
I when I was with Whitney and Whitney was because
Whitney moved me so much.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
That's like Whitney, no question, the best. But I mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
But I hadn't listened to the old stuff that Aretha
did you know, the older songs and listening to young Aretha.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
Untouchable quod. So then Whitney rounds out the five. Then yeah, Whitney,
it's a great five. Okay, all right, Okay, this was
gonna be tough for you, Oh man, It's gonna be
tough for him not to name it, not to get.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
In his own band. Your top five R and B.

Speaker 4 (01:22:32):
Songs, songs, songs I'm not gonna figure in your mind.
You can, you can, I don't want to, Okay, I

(01:22:53):
can only name them based off of how they hit
me and they're the top five at this moment. You
asked me tomorrow, it might be one of the past.

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:10):
When I first heard Luther Superstar mm hmm, and it
wasn't just without hearing it, but when I heard him
do it on stage.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
And how he.

Speaker 4 (01:23:25):
How how he did that, I thought that was the
one for me until I heard Houses not Home m m,
and then I was confused about which one it was,
and ultimately it was which the house is not a home.
It's not necessarily an R and B song, but it
is by the time Luther finished, and it was the

(01:23:50):
setup Doom Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom. And when he do
that live losing, Losing, it's a rock, it's around, and
that was the Jerry Carl So for Luther, house is
not at homes, Elder Barge, time will reveal.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
I heard that in Cincinnati. Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:24:27):
I heard at the same time I heard Chaka Khan
Ain't Nobody And we were in a club and I
never went to clubs. I was at a club and
and Ain't Nobody almost got me on the dance floor.
I almost did, but I never would get on the
dance floor. And so at the end of it, this
girl grabs me, come on, and and so all of

(01:24:48):
a sudden, I'm out there dancing. Well, ain't nobody look like?
What am I here?

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
And then do do do? Doom? Doom?

Speaker 4 (01:24:59):
And I was like, oh, and the first first time
I'm dancing, I'm slow down.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
Didn't know what a hunch it was. But I was
more like, but no, I didn't hunt. I didn't know,
you know, I needed I needed young Jerry Crow back then.
But but that song, I was just the chords and

(01:25:29):
and the voice and everything. I was just I was flabbergasted.
And the whole time we were doing the tour with Ell,
I kept on trying to go up to him and
tell him what that song?

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
Yeah, how did you do that?

Speaker 3 (01:25:46):
And and.

Speaker 4 (01:25:50):
I never got the chance to go up to him
while he was on there because he would always I
was I was a hood on him, walking really fast,
making sure people like me couldn't come up and talk
to him.

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
But I was.

Speaker 4 (01:26:02):
I was just blown away by that and that songs
to this day, every time I hear it still it
still touches me that way. I can't really think of
much more, to be honest, I'm just gonna give you
top two because I can there. There aren't songs right
at the moment that I think that just kind of
like blew me away like those at the at the

(01:26:24):
moment that unless we're going back even back further to
where we go back to the.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
The Jackson five and.

Speaker 4 (01:26:36):
One that hit me that isn't there isn't one of
the popular songs. But but it meant something to me
then at the time, which was looking through the windows,
looking through the windows maybe tomorrow, I think it's called
maybe Tomorrow. Look it up and they're like, what's that one?

Speaker 3 (01:26:54):
But it.

Speaker 4 (01:26:57):
What hit me about that is how musical it was.
And and you know, there's always I'll be there and
all the other ones. But for me, what what I
love so much about the Jackson five are the producers
of them that they were. They were taking them everywhere musically,
and and that gave me ideas that I could.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):
Do songs freedom go beyond.

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:27:25):
There it's an easy one. Top R and B. It's
R and B but it's not R and B but
it's but it's and put it. We put it in
Sofu because it's the best wedding summer uh summer song,
barbecue song. Uh, it's just the best black celebrated celebratory

(01:27:50):
song ever. No, not celebration from cooling the game, but September.
It's's like a perfect song. Yeah, And I think I
copied that song a million times. I must have written
that song so many times back in the day where
I copied it and wrote me, you know, a few
September songs, just trying to get that filled.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
What is that three?

Speaker 4 (01:28:23):
I think, Uh, trying to pick a funk song, one
of the funkiest songs that not not with P funk
with Cameo guomed, I can't even think of that. I

(01:28:48):
only know the lick gumed guess I like what you do, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
It song mm hmm hmmmm hmmmm.

Speaker 4 (01:29:07):
Somebody will let us know, but I can't think of
it title of it right now either. It feels like
it starts with the K. But but funkiness. You know,
just when I saw Cameo, the first time I saw
Cameo and and for for a funk group, they were

(01:29:32):
just the funkiest group ever. And they used to they
walked like they intimidated you, you know, very you know,
they walk into the walk into the arena, were like
it was wearing athletic cups over the past, and this
was and but they carried it, you know, and and

(01:29:57):
so like, and you didn't want to play a show
with them because because they they kill, you know, And
and that was so you know, for me coming from
that world and learning it, it was it's something that
I respected.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
So ask me again tomorrow to be a different time.

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
Yeah, okay, fair, we're gonna build your R and B
singer called it R and B voltron. Where do you
get the vocals, the performance style, the styling, and the
heart the passion. Who do you get your vocals from
for this artist? I don't understand what you're saying. So

(01:30:36):
out of all the vocalists you know, all the vocalists
you've heard, whose vocal would you use to build the
perfect R and B singer?

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
You pick one. It'll be a combination, baby face. Yeah,
you can do whatever you want to do.

Speaker 1 (01:30:53):
We're not fighting you on nothing. Usually i'd be over
here going crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):
People serve the rules.

Speaker 1 (01:30:58):
I got h.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
It's still not somebody mm hmm. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:31:23):
That's a very hard one to pick because there's a
lot of people in terms of today, even with kids
today that voice and voices that I love. Some voices
that I think are are great, not really blow and smoke,
But you have a great voice.

Speaker 2 (01:31:38):
Tank Uh. You have a smoothness to your voice. I
love this. We love the smoothness of it. I think.

Speaker 4 (01:31:52):
Sometimes I think range is important, but then then not always,
because it depends on how you use it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:06):
I love.

Speaker 4 (01:32:08):
I'm putting all these voices together. But I love Daniel
Caesar's voice, Kyle.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
I love different, huh different.

Speaker 4 (01:32:18):
Yeah, And and he's his own he's his own different
right in there too, you know so, and and I
I wonder where he gets where that happened for him.
I love the uniqueness of Gibon, of his voice. I
think there's something that's not it's not traditional. So I'm

(01:32:41):
into this.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
He's like a He's like a He's like an of
the new evolution of Keith Staton. Yes, almost a little jazzy,
you know where it's.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
He can move, but very but but very identify and identified.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
A little bit of egg, a little bit Kermit speaking.

Speaker 4 (01:33:11):
But but it's but emotional for sure. So I lean
towards voices that are emotional. I'm not so I used
to be really into the movement of how much you
can do that, But I don't know that that's as
important anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:33:32):
He used to impress me. But it's not what I
look for at this point. I look for emotion.

Speaker 4 (01:33:36):
I look for even if it's a holding a note
and if it's a crack at the right place, that
there's something that were delivers this. The main thing that
we want, that that I think that we need is
just emotion so that you can sing something that that connects.
And it's not about It's not about so much about

(01:33:59):
church anymore, because I used to me, hands down, if
you church, if you could go like.

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
So, that's that's the thing. I know.

Speaker 4 (01:34:08):
I'm jumping around and moving around like that. But one
voice I've always said I wanted if I had that voice.
If I had that voice, I'd be a hell of
a R and B dude. If I had BB Winner's voice.
You know, he can say anything, yes, if I had
his voice, like yeah. It's like I used to say
that to Johnny, if I had your voice, boy, I

(01:34:30):
know what to do if you only knew what you
could do, you know. But it's a little hard for
me to build the R and B singer that you
want because I'm everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:34:41):
You know, I'm not Because who got the style? Whose
performance style? Do you? Performance style? Performance style? When you
look on stage? Who who is that? Today?

Speaker 4 (01:34:57):
A lot of the in terms of R and BS
is it's more about the females. They're the ones that
that have this flavor. Yeah, they're cooking us, you know,
from from Jasmine to to Summer to a lot of
the girls that I've worked with on this album for
Girls Night Out talking about it, it is like people

(01:35:20):
that I was surprised with because I didn't know. So
Rika had introduced me to a lot of these girls
that I wasn't really aware of, and like one of
them being Tiana Major nine. Oh we love her, And
I had no idea that she had one of all of.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
It got presence, yes, oh my god, in her vocals
and I had no idea. And when when we got
her in and she starts saying, so whoa amen? You
you real? You know?

Speaker 4 (01:35:49):
And then.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
Another pleasant surprise. I mean, look, we are Lennox special.

Speaker 4 (01:35:58):
What can I say? And you know the Queen, I
call her the Queen. Kailawney has always the most recognizable
just feel good shit period. She just she's she just
lands what she lands, and I love the career that
she's built for herself. She don't care about what nobody
else but what she does and how she rosen and

(01:36:20):
she's selling out places everywhere, and I love that. I
love that she didn't care about radio. She ain't gotta
care about radio because the fans love her and they.

Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
It's very pure, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:36:30):
So another voice somebody that that threw me. That didn't
throw me. But I was just so impressed Coco Jones.
I had no idea we got She does the song
simple on the albums Ain't that simple about that?

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
So so I feel like.

Speaker 4 (01:36:55):
For this record that I've worked on and these artists
that I've been working with, I've been I've been inspired
to see that these young girls, they can sing, and
they're also very independent in the sense of that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
They like to.

Speaker 4 (01:37:08):
When we worked on this record, we wrote this together.
It wasn't like Excel where I wrote everything handed over.
We wrote it all together. So we had one day
to sing it, to write it and sing it on
this whole album, and and so everybody came to the
table and we and we only did it if we
did it together.

Speaker 2 (01:37:29):
And so it was.

Speaker 4 (01:37:33):
It was impressive to see their independence and see independence
in the sense like they it had to be, had
to mean something to them. They weren't just gonna sing
anything that you gave to them, and they had a
you know, had an opinion, and that wasn't always the
case before in all the years I've been doing it.

(01:37:54):
Somebody they just whatever you got, just give it to
and that's cool. But it's all always nice when someone
is invested in it, and uh, and they kind of
know themselves, and I think that's there there was. The
surprise is that most of these are all the artists,
they did know themselves. It's different when you get with

(01:38:14):
one that wants to be something, but it's not that.
But they actually knew themselves. So it made the process easier.
Since you know, to get the name of the album
is Girls night Out, Girls night Out. That's so you're
going to do a male version for the guys too,
You're gonna do a series.

Speaker 1 (01:38:31):
Come on, man, only the young fellas tap being with
the young fellas, the young old fellow right there, we're available.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
It's something.

Speaker 4 (01:38:44):
It's something that you know, I could say, we'll see,
we'll see with this rose I had had a good
time doing this and it was fun too. As I say,
work with these girls, and I've always traditionally just worked
better with the women.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
Women.

Speaker 1 (01:38:58):
Yeah, amazing success. So don't forget about Bobby Brown Campbell.

Speaker 2 (01:39:04):
Yeah, I mean it happened. They were there, There was
the man.

Speaker 1 (01:39:10):
I guess they were the end of the road. Hey, man,
go ahead and do another challenge to make him do
the album with the young.

Speaker 2 (01:39:18):
I got you. Yeah, some ship man off tomorrow. This guy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
He likes to go in.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
You messed up my whole Vultron. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:39:32):
You know you You've talked about all the things I
wanted to talk about putting in so many artists.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
I talk a lot. No, it's I love it. We
need we needed that to help the vote. Trying.

Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
But speaking of of you know what we got that time,
we got a segment of the show for brother Face.
Come on, it's called I Ain't saying that, I ain't
saying And we need a baby Face version because we've
had today, We've had all versions of our questions and
our you know what I mean in our list, baby Face,

(01:40:05):
we know you you're gonna give us your versions. You're
gonna remix all of our stuff. Even though on the
verses you said you didn't do remixes. That wasn't your thing,
because you know your baby face ain't remixes. It's a
great stunt. I was at the house cracking up.

Speaker 2 (01:40:20):
Oh so we're doing remixes, got it? Oh my god,
I can't say that. Did you do? Y'all think I
was like really going after him? Well?

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
I know you so, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:40:35):
I wasn't. Okay, you're touching them.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
It was like it wasn't full left hooks.

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
What's the first what's the first job? Y'all think I did?
To me?

Speaker 1 (01:40:46):
The jab, like I said, that's the jab for me,
is that like remix baby face. You didn't have to
say the full thing. But it's like we knew what
it was.

Speaker 2 (01:40:56):
I have originals. Honestly, kind didn't do that, but it
wasn't mean. It wasn't meant that way.

Speaker 4 (01:41:07):
It was like because when he it felt like the
rules changed suddenly because when he played the one song
that was a remix that wasn't something he produced.

Speaker 2 (01:41:18):
I was like, are we doing remixes?

Speaker 4 (01:41:21):
Because I was thinking, all right, but that's Jim and
Terry so and then I said, well that's I don't
do remixes, So I don't know if that, but that
came off like I was like I don't even do.

Speaker 1 (01:41:33):
Remixes or no, that came out for like I don't
need to do right, And that was not what it
was an honest answer.

Speaker 2 (01:41:40):
I don't do remixes because I didn't do remixes.

Speaker 1 (01:41:43):
It was it was back to the bless you more me. Listen, man,
you got your way of pooring champoo. That brand his
way Walla on the Wall inspiration is what I'll call it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
Champagne on the wall.

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
You got your way upon Champagne.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
I'm just gonna stop with you, all right. There was
no harm in anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:42:12):
So this was babyfaces. I ain't said on that. I
ain't saying, oh this guy could the story can be
funny or fucked up. Are funny and fucked up. I
just can't say.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
They names somebody tore up. I can't do that. You can't.
You can't do it. You could do it? Can RecA
telling me you could do it?

Speaker 4 (01:42:46):
Somebody. I heard somebody m tore up a hotel room
because I left them message to say congrats, and because

(01:43:07):
they left that because I left that message to say congrats.
The person tore up the room because they thought something
was going on with that someone. You left a congratulations
to somebody getting married. No, that's all I'm saying. You said,

(01:43:27):
still say no names, congratulations.

Speaker 2 (01:43:30):
It is different.

Speaker 1 (01:43:32):
I wish Babyface would wish me a congratulations on my whatever,
because he don't want to tell us what whatever is. Hey, girl,
you know him with your woman? Hey, you know, I'm
sorry we didn't work out. I'm sorry we didn't work out.
It looks like you really found love because it just

(01:43:54):
wasn't just a congratulations.

Speaker 2 (01:43:55):
We need m It was a congrats.

Speaker 3 (01:43:58):
That's all it should have been. But I just want
to let you know I'll always love you and if
you ever need a home, I have plenty. Where would
you go? You would come to me because I've always
thought you were my son.

Speaker 2 (01:44:13):
Shine. You remember the whipper Field, don't you? Yeah? Signed
the lover ps. Don't forget about those two occasions. Now
that we've come to the end of the road, we

(01:44:33):
could go all night, ladies and gentlemen. Man. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:44:40):
One of the biggest inspirations for me and my career
from singing, songwriting to producing and now to us building
a label and taking those steps. We are, like I said,
we're following in some big footsteps and we are. We're
doing our best to make you proud. You've already made

(01:45:02):
me prouds though.

Speaker 2 (01:45:03):
No, we just and.

Speaker 1 (01:45:07):
You coming here and being on the podcast for both
of us, it's just like I said, this is a
full circle moment. You might not even know it, but
you're the first person that I worked with when I
came here. Obviously you know I was working with Damon
Thomas and you know what I mean. But like as
far as like an artist, producer, writer, just the whole thing.

(01:45:29):
And I never had a chance to tell you back then.
I'm young and I'm just you know, boisterous and the
whole thing. But you've been my favorite artist since I
was a little kid.

Speaker 2 (01:45:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:45:40):
I had a natural crack in my voice, so I'm like.

Speaker 2 (01:45:42):
Your baby face always do you know that song? Trying
to do.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
So but you coming here today it means the world
to us, man, because we truly celebrate people who have
inspired us and people who have continued to do it.
Just like you said with your conversation with Aretha Franklin,
us seeing you still have a putting out more projects.

(01:46:14):
You gotta put out nothing. You can do whatever you want.
You've earned that in this in this life and in
this business. Your success have put you in a position
to do whatever you want. But the fact that you
will still give back to the culture and still make
these albums and still you know you don't like to
say this, but give us your gift that means the

(01:46:36):
world to us. Man, and thank you, thank you, Thank you, ladies, gentlemen.
I'm Jay Valentine and this has been, in.

Speaker 3 (01:46:48):
My opinion, the most special Army Money podcast episode today.
I love everybody who's been on, but I got it here,
So man noise for Kenneth baby Face, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:47:13):
R and B Money Money.

Speaker 3 (01:47:17):
R and B Money is the production of the Black
Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe to and rate
our show, and you can connect with us on social
media via at R and B Money Podcasts or at
The Real Tank or at j Valentine

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Hosts And Creators

Tank

J. Valentine

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